It's the first time since I was 19 years old that I chose to move of my own volition, and not out of desperate necessity and destitution. Weird!

EDITED TO ADD: I was entirely mistaken about the 30 days thing, and it's not an issue at all. My roommate is totally fine with my moving out this month. So. *whew!* I think I'm just really paranoid about this move.

I'm feeling stronger, faster, more agile and physically good, thanks to the sports and the weight loss. I feel like I could jump over small (dog)houses! I'm about 6kg down, currently one kilo behind the schedule, but it's incredible the difference it can make. On the climbing gym I tried on a weight vest with enough lead to simulate the weight I've lost since January, and the difference was stunning. The soles of my feet don't hurt, my knee doesn't hurt, I can do shit I can only remember doing years ago, and I still have both lard to lose and muscle to build. My climbing levelled up suddenly last week, and I did 3-4 grade 6a routes all of a sudden. That felt damn good.

The Torsobear comic anthology for which I wrote a script looks like it will really happen! The artist who'll be illustrating my story has a really delightful otherworldly style, and I'm giddily waiting for the end result!

GF's job is going really awesome, and she's getting a proper contract pretty soon. This means we can seriously start looking for a proper apartment for the two of us, start planning holidays, doing all that stuff. 2014 is forming up to be a pretty damn awesome year.

It just may be that I'll be going to Croatia next October for a week-long hands-on workshop of underwater robotics, signal processing and other marine technologies. This will not be kind to my finances, but… HANDS ON UNDERWATER ROBOTICS. That's what I call a holiday.

We had an intra-office move, and my new work station rocks. I have a 11th floor view of the sea in three directions. This makes it much easier to stomach...

/o\

…that the big chance I mentioned earlier fell through. It was an awesome chance to do a career adjustment I've wanted to do for a long long time, but missed narrowly twice, which is moving to production side. This makes it the third time. I was really fucking bummed when I heard about it, because of... reasons, and I still am. Oh well. Five minutes of self pity, and off to hunt for the next chance.

Started another IF project, which is kind of an yay, but frankly it's scary as fuck. I have six uncompleted projects in that one folder, five of them abandoned and one on hiatus, and if this ends up being one of them, I'll crawl into the central pit and that's a fucking fact. It doesn't help that the ideas for the upcoming short story anthology just refuse to turn into stories, so I had to drop out. After years of writer's block and not getting shit done, I seriously don't take not completing stuff well.

I'm realising that by not attending cons, meetings and such events, I've missed and keep missing a ton of interesting chances, and literally some money in the form of book sales. I should start hounding the local cons, going to the games industry meetings and such, but aaargh, that's just not who I am. I don't want to mingle just for the sake of mingling. I don't mind doing presentations or stuff like that, but since I'm not out hunting for chanes to do stuff like that, those chances won't materialise. For the creative stuff, I'm just not social like that, which hurts my chances to do more of it. Blah. I guess I'll have to start forcing myself to do it more.

o/

@oldhat: Congrats on the weight loss success and a massive fucking boo at that "we''ll this guy'll do it for free". Those people are the fucking blight of creative classes.

@allana: Money, the source and solution to so many problems! :) I know how cool it is to finally get your head out of the water.

@flecky: Hang in there, man. Your voyage with getting clean has been some heroic shit and if it didn't take a bite out of your ass like that, you wouldn't be human.

@Rach: That friend thing can be a bummer :/ Also, moving in with someone is damn scary at times, with all the territories getting all intertwiny and overlapping. I'm rooting for everything to work out there!

Enh:School school school. Wah wah wah. So close to being over! Exam tomorrow, cleaning up a group project for two days, then doing a final book bibliography for two days, then I'm out.

w00t: Gonna skype with a lady in Toronto in an hour or so, about taking over her apartment at the end of the month. Furnished! Cheap! Downtown! A place to regroup and gather myself and apply for every job in sight. Very exciting. Had a pretty good day all around, actually. Woke up at a half-decent time without the usual grogginess, bought some amazing stuff with a gift certificate, sat in a park in the sunshine (you can DO that now!), met some dogs, listened to some calypso.

Enh: Dipping into money that was expressly saved for the purpose of cushioning my post-graduate job-hunt still hurts. I need an income.

w00t: Liberal MAJORITY government. Boom.

Enh:Part of my post-mortem on living in Quebec for two years is that I actually wouldn't mind it if Quebec seceded. Screw these guys. They're insular and narcissistic and corrupt and bad at money and management and they don't care about being part of Canada. Fuck 'em.

y00:Vorn, your life is badass. Patrick, you are a cowboy. Enjoy your VO class.britt, I wish my wonky counsellor experience didn't discourage other people from investing time in getting that support system established. I learned my lesson: don't leave it til it's too late! Get a cool counsellor now!Rachel, I'm so happy you got stuff accepted to an art show. Your photography is long overdue getting that kind of attention.

Two classes into my voice-over workshop. Going very well! I'm a stand-out! (Mainly because everyone else is terrible) It's actually been very small, only two of us tonight. Two more classes to go. Apparently, my voice has a pleasant quality and is very versatile. The fact that I have been reading comic books and poetry and pretty much anything aloud since the age of three probably helped somehow. This is my Good Thing.

FUCKITY-BYE!

1) I got dumped. After I "found out" she was seeing another guy and did the "I ... can't talk right now" thing, right in front of me. And then spilled it - his name is Shane. He has cancer and a brain tumour. (!) He's a professional bicycle mechanic. They just went out for lunch, that's all. So I left, said "I gotta go", went home, immediately. (Because I'm not stupid?) Chatted with her during the week (she's a busy woman, after all, with her job and fitness class and her dog and her new boyfriend.), had plans to get together but didn't. A week later, I went over and we talked (a bit about it, more about other things). We had sex one last time (at my ...not insistence but request? To which she happily agreed, on one condition - when I ever sleep over again, I have to do so not in her bed. On the couch with the dog or in the spare room.) So we did and it was fine and we went to sleep. Woke in the mo(u)rning and she asked me "Sleep well?" And I said "No. You?" And she said "No."

So I got up and went out and had a cigarette and made coffee and we had coffee and she apologized, kinda. And I gave her back her key, with an "Oh. By the way. Before I forget." (She sent me a message, saying I was classy and shit. For that thing with the key.) I thanked her and we've chatted occasionally since.

I am angry and depressed about it but whatever, that's normal and will pass. Made me think about all the other women who have "cheated?" on me. Which, upon recollection, is almost all of them. I could name them but I won't. The point is, I'm still friends with almost all of these women (there's one who won't talk to me and there's one I won't EVER talk to and one I'm sure is dead by now.) But almost every girlfriend I've ever had (and I mean GIRLFRIEND, long-term relationship-shit, not some broad I met in a bar), almost every one cheated on me. There's something wrong with me. (YA THINK?!) Not women, ME. Women are women and whatever and sometimes you take off the Band-Aid QUICKLY and some-times you peel it off SLOWLY and it still fucking hurts. Hurts a bit more when you're the Band-Aid and she's got another one standing by. (When she told me she was taking a fitness class, I knew. I doubt he has a brain tumour*. I'm a fucking Batmanologist, I'm not stupid.)

2) I've cut my brother out of my life, AGAIN. There is a story to this, one I shan't tell. My dad's health is not good - Listen! He just randomly screamed in pain! He also likes to scream "FUCK!" at the top of his lungs. At random intervals. A lesser man would be mad by now.

We have to have Easter. No one wants to do it. If there's one person I want to come back from the Dead, it sure ain't fuckin' Jesus. It ain't my cheating ex-girlfriend, neither!

My sister's don't get along, the house is a mess, I have to do literally ALL THE WORK EVER and I just wanna say "Fuck it". It's gonna be a twenty pound turkey for four people, probably, because my uncle will cancel and my sister's will kill each other and my drinking buddy will likey show up for a free meal.

3) There was something else but I can't remember. Oh well, fuck it.

@allana - that thing's freakin' me out.

EDIT TO ADD AND CLARIFY - If he does have a brain tumour, then I'm terrible for doubting it. If he doesn't have a brain tumour, he's terrible for lying about it. I'm VERY MUCH DOUBT they "just had lunch" so she kinda lied to me, I think. (Been a lot of that lately. Full fucking moon.) Just as women have lied and cheated, men have lied about having brain tumours, in order to sleep with women. THINK LIKE BATMAN.

Bad:Slogging through the exhausting processes of moving, getting a place, renting storage, packing (and probably having to get rid of my plants, sigh), selling stuff online. Cleaning. Paperwork. Arranging multiple minor time-sensitive things. Still applying for jobs. Uh. Other stuff. Way too much time on craigslist, that's for sure.

Good: I don't know, watching Game of Thrones? Had some friends visit on Monday/Tuesday, that was nice.

Had the awesomest Easter holiday. Started my diving season with the second fun-diving (ie. not work or school dive) trip in three years. And the previous one was just one dip into a quarry in the summer of 2012. We went to Kaatiala quarry, where I have been once, and it was awesome fun. It almost started with a massive meh, since the wrist seals of my dry suit were beyond gone last autumn, and I had totally forgotten about it, so the first time I put it on one of them split almost the whole way through. Which means that the suit is unusable. For a moment it looked like I'll spend the weekend watching porn on iPad in the cabin instead of diving, but then half a dozen diver dudes surrounded me trying to suggest fixes and find spare parts.

In the end I ended up doing my first dive in a couple of years with my own gear with a wrist seal fixed with loctite and duct tape, and going directly to 30 meters to see some quarry tunnel mouths. Yeah, in case you are wondering, that's not how to do it if you claim to be security conscious ;)

When I got up the second seal broke (dun-dun-duu!) but continuing with the awesome helpfulness, in the evening one of the guys sacrificed his own hand-customized dry gloves and they got permanently attached to my suit, and they worked wonderfully.

The quarry itself is really beautiful. They used to mine feldspar and quartz, so it's like diving in a huge aquarium: the walls and the gravel in the bottom is beautifully white, with glittering muscovite flakes scattered all around, like pieces of mirror. We took a detour into this alcove where the trucks were parked, it could fit like four busses if you stacked them neatly. When you dove in to the darkness, the muscovite flakes gleamed like bronze mirrors, but suddenly turned green, like they were fluorescent. That was actually them reflecting the green waters of the open quarry. Purrr-ty.

On Easter Monday I got a surprise work gig, as the surface assistant for a four algae transect survey trip on the Baltic. There were no clouds, the sea was calm, I got to do science on the waters, get some more boating experience and to learn a few new tricks, and actually got paid for it. Yes, it was good :)

/o\

Oops I over-did it again. I was climbing and exercising quite actively earlier this month, spurred with some great results in climbing. My right elbow started getting sore, or more like the places where the muscles are attached to. It got worse and worse, I had a week's pause from exercise, and a bruise started to form. So, it's strained, I thought, but apparently it may be some sort of tendonitis. This puts a major cramp on the beginning outdoor climbing season, and all sorts of other active stuff we have lined up for the summer :/ I have a doctor's appointment for it on Friday.

I also seem to have maxed one of my credit cards again. BUT. That is totally just my own fault, and it was done in the name of awesome, not soul grinding necessity, so "you can't complain about self-caused pain" as a local saying goes.

o/

@mister hex: Oh fucking dear. Bicycle mechanic with a brain tumour, sounds like something straight out of Community as far as the absurdity factor goes - although yeah, not amusing at all. A lot being heaped on you now, it sounds like :/

@allana and @Rachel: Then eventually there's that wonderful first morning in the new place when the coffee machine and the laptop are unpacked, the old lease is over and done with, and that first cup of coffee stastes like new fun-scary horizons opening. Moving sucks, but the first days after the move can be intoxicating.

Photo? I don't have a bloody photo, I have a video just for Whitechapel with my sunburned scabby and wrinkly face on it!

Partner's father is dying. He's on a ventilator and has to make the decision whether to remove the mask and let go, or keep being ventilated, which he hates and is hurting him. I can't begin to comprehend what that must be like, if you're fully aware, to make that choice consciously and the agony that she, her brother and mother are going through right now watching it. He would have gone this afternoon but got scared and put the mask back on. He won't get better, it's just a question of when.

Just awful. I'm trying to do what I can by looking after the girls, who are pretty upset and being there for her. The next few days could be pretty dark.

Plenty of other petty stuff and work stress, but that can all go swivel right now.

The good

There are some shoots in the garden. And signs that some of my clematis and roses are thriving. My girls are healthy.

Applause

@Hex - sorry man. @Vorn - the quarry sounds awesome. As does all the messing around in boats

Thumbs up:Well, I "moved" to my new place but didn't stay there. And now I'm on a bus to Washington. (... Does anybody live in Washington?)It's super foggy and the sun just went down and it's very romantic. I like bus trips. I wish I had tea, and maybe some sort of small dessert.Presentation on Friday, and thankfully the greyhound has wifi and power outlets, so I can work on it when I'm not staring dazedly out the window.

I am so happy to be out of Montreal I can't even express. And it's a weird confluence, a couple of friends have moved back to Toronto this month/week. Just yesterday I was having a celebratory burrito when someone messaged me saying she was back for good. Amazing.

Wavey horizontal hand:Had a phone interview today. I've lost all ability to judge the impression I make. I know I rant, because I have idea and I want people to hear me having ideas. Some good feedback, and some pregnant silences on the other end of the line. Meh. We'll see.

Thumbs definitively down:Oh, bank account. You poor bastard.

Pointing finger:Toronto WC, let's beer. Call me. Same bat channels.JP, I hope you're holding up. I wish the internet could offer you more support than just words, but that's how it is. Come back and vent anytime.

SWEETBeen thinking and for the last long while I haven't been particularly depressed. A little blue sometimes. Sometimes too much room for my brain to heave on things that don't need heaving, you know? But not knocked out, unable to move even though the world is racing by me. That's kinda nice. I always get worried about stuff like that though. There's point in the movie SERENITY where River is crying because she can think clearly for a little while and she says it's like the sun coming out but she's sad because the clouds will come again and it'll go away. Man I know that feeling. It's like a superstition about pointing out a good streak being the catalyst that ends the good streak.

And yet here I am daring to hope for a better streak. The play that ate my April is up on its feet. I still have to give up my weekends to it for the next month at least, but I have the week to go ahead and reestablish what I want my life to be. Loan money is in. It's not very much; not nearly as much as would make my summer worry free, at the very least for the purposes of pursuing all the VO that I want (which is what it's for), but it'll give me some breathing room for at least a couple of months. I can take some classes, get some maintenance on the truck and meet with some pros and pick their brains.

SUCKIt's nearly a quarter to 3am. And I'm normally up at this hour, true. But tonight so is my niece. She's 11. She's working on a complicated science project with a multipart paper and everything. She's been working on it for days. But I know from "working" and WORKING. She hides the screen on the computer when I walk by. It takes her several minutes to open the document. I can see the Google header "how do I hide..." And I know how to hide a Web history thankyouverymuch. }:/ She's prickly about getting help. She's whiny about this getting done. And if she got better grades I'd be willing to let a lot of this slide. But come ON.

I'm not her parent. But her parents don't stand at her side. They park her at the computer and then go off and watch TV. Grandparents, who are teachers, sometimes drop by, but they're aware they're not parents either and if she gets prickly they don't feel the need to put up with it.

Grah. Kid. I feel so bad for her when her parents yell at her. But if I dicked around that much when I was her age it would have been the belt and no dinner. *sigh* In truth, it's just that I don't get it. I loved getting my shit done. Fuck, I loved showing off how much I knew (past tense...haha, I still love it). I loved getting good grades and making my parents proud. So... I Don't Get It. You have one job, kid. And you're blowing it.

And my Older Brother is coming back tomorrow. The schizophrenic one. The asshole. He's been in a drug test study. Where they take him off the prescribed meds and try him on something else for a while. Then they stop those and send him back to us, expecting that by magic he'll pick back up the old meds that he hated so much. My mom ordered him to quit attending those because they mess him up and then we suffer. But he sees it as the only way he can make any money. So he snuck off a couple of months ago. It's been so fucking pleasant around the house. *siiiiiiiigggh*

Whatever. And late spring last year is when I got a nasty bout of lying-in-my-bed-crushed-by-bad-brain....

The SLURPDon't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Don't hit on Hex. Hokay - Vorn - Yay surprise work gigs!! Esp doing cool shit you enjoy! YAY!!Allana - Washington State or Washington DC? Opposite ends of the country...JP - Sorry to hear you have to do the death in the family thing right now. There's never a good time for it, but it's just awful when it comes. *hug*

I've been away from here for a while, but active on the Zuckerberg engine.

Good: Coming to terms with my father's death. Definitely getting better. Easter sucked--it was the first time we'd had people over since he died, and there was a big black hole where he ought to have been. I shed my first tear about it since the day of his funeral Mass, and I didn't implode. I took a class on ancestor worship (don't laugh) and made a little altar. I gave him some whiskey this morning; hope he likes it.

I've been crushing the novel; wordcount is consistent and strong. I've been reading, which fuels the fire. I'm collecting some of my Weaponizer stories in a Lulu book called Feeling Around In The Dark--look for it at your favorite online retailer!

I'm moderating my food intake some. It's hard, but I'm almost back to where I was two years ago when I started losing.

Learning tarot like a sumbitch. Very useful.

Bad:As predicted, my father's death has led to some of his siblings acting like jackals.

I haven't had sex since January.

The badmind is improving, but still gets bad.

Applause:I swear to GOD I am going to read through this thread and check in on you beautiful maniacs, but until then, I hope you're all doing well. If you aren't, it will get better.

Eddie died last Saturday. Just really sad, partner is trying to keep it together but incredibly shaken by the loss. Middle daughter is extremely upset, crying a lot at school and wetting herself, he was very fond of her. Eldest is being an absolute cow, that's how she deals with stuff.

I didn't expect to be as upset myself as I am. I had complicated feelings about him and he wasn't an easy person to know or be around. Some of his actions and decisions led to a lot of damage, I didn't respect them in any way and that, for a long time, clouded my view about him. Over the years, my partner sometimes made assumptions that I would behave as he did and that upset me and caused conflict. But as she's talked about him and her feelings, how she had moved on and forgiven a lot, and about his upbringing and history, maybe it's not for me to judge.

He wasn't a saint or hero, just a flawed guy, trying to find his way in circumstances he wasn't well equipped to navigate. Unwanted by his mother, who wanted a girl, he was sent off to boarding school very young and before that raised by servants. During the war, he was sent to England, again to boarding school, in the holidays never went home but stayed in hotels, so never really had a family life or a normal childhood. He worked on ships and ended up running a yacht broker. He was probably very depressed at some points in his life leading to impulsive and rash decisions. So when his business failed, he sold a large inherited house that would have given then a retirement income and bought a house in Spain without telling his wife, then moved the family, except my partner who was at university, over there. That, I think, felt like a bereavement itself to her. Then he drank and smoked most of the money, destroyed his lungs and health in the process, and they had to buy a bookshop to provide an income, already in his late sixties. He hated England with a vengeance (being half Greek, half Maltese) and didn't want to come back, and didn't want to live in my partner's grandparents house which her mother inherited (they never forgave him for taking their only daughter to another country and he knew damn well they never wanted him to live there), but his health got so bad he finally didn't have much choice.

But when he was up, he was a character, somebody that you wouldn't forget. A lot of the Facebook messages are lovely, and paint a different picture... of a larger than life bon viveur with a passion for boats, entertainingly crude (I never wanted him to meet my father, they wouldn't have got on). My partner has a lot of happy memories of sailing with him, apparently the only time he was truly content. That's a regret of mine, that I never went sailing with him. I remember him as crazy, sometimes great fun when he was healthy, loving to drink and party. She was very protective of him, he could get himself in fights he couldn't win. He also wanted to see us get married, and I'm really sad for her he didn't and we didn't and I didn't know he cared about that. I was looking for photos of him today for her. There was one that I had remembered as quite sad, of him sitting on a wall on his own looking out to sea. I was totally wrong. In it, he had a glass of wine, was face on to the camera, with a massive grin on his face. That made me smile.

Finished my voice-over workshop. Now, to put it into practice. Gonna have to level up on technology and shit. My instructors were all very impressed by me and I may have made a new friend (the other guy in the class was nice and cool).

I'm a genius. I don't give myself enough credit but goddamnit, I'm a fucking genius. (Ted Williams used to warm up by repeating to himself that he was Ted Williams, the GREATEST FUCKING HITTER IN BASEBALL! Got a home-run in his last at-bat.)

After living like a monk for seven years, I'd forgotten the many pleasures of female companionship. Pleasures I am continually reminded of. I joined OkStupid and it certainly lives up to its moniker. Just as well; all I can offer a woman at this point is laughter and multiple orgasms. Apparently, they want you to have "a job".

I don't have "a job." Looking and not finding.

It's Mother's Day next week.

Had a fight with a friend of mine (because he was being a dick and I'm frankly fed up with him). Not sure what's going on, not really sure I care. I don't need that shit so I won't have it. He can kiss my milk-white ass.

ROCK N ROLL -

@JP - Sorry to hear that. He sounded like an interesting guy. Hugs to you and the Missus and kid-lets. @Faux - It gets a bit easier but holidays are a fucking bitch. Take care. @Razr - Feel free to hit on me, friend me on Zuckerberg's Vile Machinery or do what you heart desires. I could use a hug from a friendly face. @allana - Drinks soon!

ADDENDUM - Easter went fine. Only one sister showed up and so did my uncle. Hallelujah.